when tracy and i were visiting san francisco we decided to take a day trip up to napa to see all of the vineyards and tour the town. one of the first things we saw when entering the town was the sign above and i felt compelled to stop and take a picture of it. i was mainly compelled by 3 different things: the fact that “emergent worship” was being used in a way of marketing; the usage of “love wins”; and possibly the most compelling was that it is a baptist church in the emergent stream—this especially compelling considering the harsh words coming out of the missouri baptist convention towards all things emerging.
i read this from the churches website in how they describe their worship:
What is emergent worship?
Emergent worship, as a postmodern expression of worship, is difficult to define. Emergent worship for us may be different than emergent worship for other churches. For us at FBC , emergent worship is more about approach than style. The service intentionally taps into ancient elements of worship to connect us to our faith history which dates back thousands of years. At the same time, God is always doing a new thing, and so we have extremely new elements of worship as well. That’s what makes emergent worship emergent – it is emerging from a rich heritage even as it is creating the new heritage that will be remembered for years to come.
the other interesting thing is that this is the only worship service that this church has… so, then is this truly and fully an emergent church or do they follow along the stream of dan kimball’s emergent worship stream as found in his books: the emerging church
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fair enough. but they’re going to need to pick a different font for “love wins” and get rid of those lame-A pictures next to the big word “baptist”.
this is true… but hey, it’s a start right?!
“is this fully and truly and emergent church?”
since emergent (the organization) is nothing more than missional conversation among friends, i do not think there is such a thing as an emergent church. i think that emergent is a more of a viral phenomenon than it is a statement of belief, practice or style.
my suspicion is that the fire that other evangelicals have focused on emergent will soon die down and the watchmen of EEEvangelicalism will find some other system of thought or practice to fret about. when that happens i have little doubt that the emergent conversation will continue, the participants in the congregation will in many cases be re-integrated into existing church traditions and evangelicalism will be all the better for it.
but that’s just my opinion. i could definitely be wrong.
i truly hope that you’re right! i want to see emergent become more viral in the aspect that they “infiltrate” and influence the church from the inside out to begin thinking in a more missionally focused lens…
Who is this “Emergent” that we are worshipping.
me. feel free to express your adoration via cash, check or money order.
and remember…if you want big fruit, you’ve got to plant big seed!
i’m still laughing at “if you want big fruit, you’ve got to plant big seed!”
We’re probably more closely aligned with the emerging church than the Emergent Church. I’m glad our sign got your attention, despite the lame-A pictures (we’re broke, and the signs were cheap…). The Love Wins is stolen material from Rob Bell, who we love. We put Emergent Worship on our shingle to let those who are knowleagable about the movement/conversation that we are in the movement/conversation as a nearly 150-year-old church. Most of the response we’ve received about the signs has been from other Christians who have only heard the right wing’s maligning portrayal of all things emerging. So, I was acutally delighted to see your responses.
Should you ever want to have a conversation about how we’re feeling our way around this thing in a church that has very old, long-term members and very new Jesus-followers, let me know. Maybe you’ll get some decent wine out of the deal, too.
As for the Missouri Baptist convention- that’s not us. The “Baptist” in our name is up for review because our distant Baptist cousins have soiled what “Baptist” stands for. Aside: Ironically, Baptist theology may be more capable of joining in the emerging church conversation than most other perspectives.
If you want to see the signs again, hurry – they are due for a change. We found some better lame-A pictures…
hey pete! my wife and i will be moving to the bay area to plant a church next year (san francisco) and i’d love to hang out with you sometime… if only for the wine!
everything that i’ve seen you guys do (website) is really great and i’m excited to see how yours and your congregations journey goes!